Greg Fairchild, head of admissions at the historic Reading School in Berkshire, has adopted a hands-on approach to identify parents attempting to secure school places through fraudulent means. The selective state grammar school, founded in the 12th century, admits 150 pupils annually from approximately 1,300 applicants.
Fairchild has taken to driving around the Reading area to verify the residency of applicants within the school's designated catchment area. He described his process, stating, "You knock on the front door and ask to see the ten-year-old boy and they say 'No, there's no child that lives here.'" In some instances, he has encountered situations where parents use the address of a landlord or another family member as an "address of convenience," despite not residing there themselves.
Fairchild believes the issue of "addresses of convenience" has intensified as grammar schools, including Reading, have tightened their admissions procedures to ensure that places are allocated to genuinely local and academically capable students. He noted that investigating suspicious addresses prior to enrollment is more effective, as it becomes more difficult to remove students later if their parents' fraudulent practices are discovered after they have settled in.
He also highlighted the problem of "test tourism," where prospective students from across the United Kingdom apply for places, thereby skewing admissions data and diverting school resources. Fairchild stated that these practices, whether through fraudulent addresses or test tourism, are "corrupting the admissions process" and detracting from the focus on serving the local community. He expressed concern that these issues provide ammunition for those who oppose the grammar school system.
